This is Cinda our Chin, sorry about the photo quality, anyone who owns a chin will know they bounce around so much it's hard to get a good shot!

Anyways Cinda was breaking my heart, she was at the Feed store for over eight months and on our trips there I kept feeling so horrible for her, she was stuck in a tiny cage w/ nothing to do. Anyways, I finaly caved and brought her home. She is now in chin heaven and the cutest thing ever! The only thing is, I didn't research before I got her (I know bad mom, she was an impulse buy) and I had no idea that they had a lifespan of up to 20 years! That's huge for a rodent! Guess Cinda is around for the long run!

Be sure to only feed her food that is safe for a chinchilla... I learned the hard way what they can not digest.

They are like any other animal.. they get bored and need things to occupy them. They enjoy treats in addition to their grain. And alfalpha was always a favorite.

Powder is what they clean themselves with. It can get messy... so don't put it next to your freshly dusted dresser.

Also, make sure you handle your chinchilla often. We also had one that was my sister's and she didn't hold hers nearly as much as I held mine and you could hardly ever hold hers cuz it would try and bite you all the time.

Good luck with your chinchilla... and read up on their dietary requirements and what kind of snacks you can give them. If you are knowledgeable of their diets then you won't be given false information from a feed store like I was. And my ignorance sadly cost my beloved chinchilla his life.

Never had any but the petstore that I used to work at had two males together. They were so bouncy when I would clean their cage out and they wanted to play but you couldn't touch them or hold them or they would bite (HARD). They are cute though.

__________________Secret to a successful life is not in playing a good hand, but in playing a poorly delt hand well.

Thanks for the compliments and input! I am lucky in that one of the people who works at my local petco is a Chin fanatic! He has many of them and his good friend is a breeder so I got some excellent advise from him.

She is fed the appropriate food and treats, loves to chew her hay nibblers and lots of wood!

As for the dust bathes they sure are messy! She gets a bath about three times a week. I have never seen anything cuter than a chin rolling in the dust!

I had a chinchilla that I got under the same situation as yours. "Chico" resided in the back room of the petstore that my (then) roommate worked at in a small hamster cage, probably 16"x8" base.. no dust, no consistent source of water or feed, no hay... had an accident as a young chin where he lost one eye so wasn't the "prettiest" thing in the world.. very neat, cute pet though. He enjoyed a year in my company until I moved back home to our family farm where our abundance of kitty friends shot his nerves. Luckily I was able to hook him up with an older lady experiencing empty nest syndrome as her children had finally just moved out. He lives the life of luxury now, sleeps under the covers with her, etc.